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As I was listening to Pastor Patrick list all those nations, I had a very strange thought in my mind. Maybe by the 40th anniversary, if Elon Musk has his way and there are settlers on Mars, Pastor Patrick will be saying, and we have an audience in Mars listening to Times Square Church live. Wouldn't that be fun? Be amazing. What a joy to be here with you today. We miss Pastor Tim Delina as he is speaking for a great pastor in church on the West Coast. Pastor David Jeremiah asked him to come and help him. So he is. So I'm here. You can. Yay. But happy to be here with you. It's always a thrill to be here in the house, and I echo Pastor Patrick's sentiments to welcome you whether you're a student on the west coast or from overseas, or whether you're. Whether you're grandma listening in from Brooklyn, or if you're a family that has 12 kids in Montana and you can't get out for church. So glad you're here with us today and in the Nannex balcony here today. Thrilled to be here with you. A Harvard professor was teaching a class of entrepreneurs, and he proposed a question. He said, students, what would be the best way to start a successful hot dog stand? Picture making a business. You have a hot dog stand. How do you make it? How do you ensure it's going to be successful? And one of the students said, well, you have to have a good quality product. Get the best hot dogs you could possibly have. And the professor says, that's good. That'll help, but it's not what I'm after here. And another student stands up and says, it's the branding. You have to have a great brand of a hot dog that looks like a man walking around or something with arms and legs. And, you know, you draw a crowd because of the branding. So good press says, no. That's nodded. Another one said, it's advertising. You can't start a good business unless you have good advertising. Hot dog stand won't survive unless there's good advertising around the location that it was. And on and on these students went, professor saying, no, no, no, no. Finally, the professor says, I'll tell you the answer to this. A successful hot dog stand will always be greatly successful if it's placed in a place where people are starving, Right? And I say that to say, God has positioned Times Square Church in a city that's starving for good news. That's why the doors are open and the crowds coming, and that's why people are listening. Around the world, the Bible says there's a famine in the land for the word of God. And I thank God. For almost 40 years now, a faithful preaching of the Word of God from this pulpit, from David Wilkerson, my father, to Pastor Carter Conlon, now Pastor Tim Delina, and every guest that comes in here, we all have the same desire, the same spiritual ambition is to present to you a starving people like me, hungry for more of Jesus to present to you nothing but the unadulterated, uncompromised gospel of Jesus Christ. There was a. To me, it's like this. There was a dinner party in New York City, and a very wealthy man threw this. It was quite a soiree. And everybody was there dressed up in their. Their best outfits, and there was music and dancing and food. And towards the end, the man who was hosting this party turns to a Broadway actor, very famous Broadway actor, had this amazing baritone voice, and he says, sir, would you do us the honor of coming up at the end of this meeting? And just something unusual we don't usually do. Would you mind just quoting the 23rd Psalm? And the man in his deep voice, which I don't have, but I'll try my best. When the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. You know, Everybody goes, oh, that's man. He's so eloquent, man, what a voice. And then the party host sees an old pastor in the back, and he remembers going to his church years ago, and he's just kind of a different kind of man. He didn't have nice clothes on, and he looked pretty old and like he didn't belong there. But the man says, let me ask him to come up. And he asks him to come up and says, would you mind quoting the 23rd Psalm as well? And the old pastor just bows his head and holds his chest, and he says, tears began to roll down his face. He said, the Lord. The Lord, he's my shepherd, I will not want. He leads me. And man, just tears rolling. And all of a sudden, people in the audience who. Who didn't know God, just tears started rolling down their face. And when he got done, the man who was hosting the party turned to the Broadway actor and said, why? Was what he said the same words different than what you said? And the Broadway actor said, I know the Psalms. He knows the Savior. And I thank God. For almost 40 years here now, the Lord has protected this pulpit. And men don't get up here and women don't get up here and just mouth words from scriptures or cute sayings or funny stories. They can stand up here and say, and I pray I stand up here with you and say, I know the Savior, and we're here today to do nothing but present the Savior to you. Maybe you walked into this building, or maybe you're listening online and you haven't met that Savior yet. And it will certainly change things. Like Psalm 23. It becomes personal when it says, I know the plans I have for you. Jeremiah says, those plans become personal when you meet the living Savior. And we pray that you might do that. Today I want to talk to you a little bit about Jonah today. That's quite a transition there. I want to talk to you about Jonah today. Before I do, if you could just bear with me, kindly allow me just a few minutes with you to describe to you a little bit about what God is doing through World Challenge, the ministry that my father began, and I've had the privilege of now being in leadership of it for about 12 years. Had a board meeting last December. Pastor Carter Conlon is on our board. Pastor Tim Delina is on our board. We had a board meeting in December, and Pastor Carter says to me, gary, I love you, and I've loved being on this board for the past 25 years. But I was walking down the hallway, and somebody asked me, what does World Challenge do? And he said, I got stuck for a second. I didn't know what to say because you do so many different things. You have pastors conferences, you have podcasts, you have a publishing company, you write books, you distribute literature, you give food to the poor. You have feeding programs, you have all these different kind of ministries going on. And I just kind of choked for a second. I didn't know what to say. And then our other board member said, you know, maybe that's why it's a little bit of a confusion to who you are. Maybe that's why you've had a little bit of trouble finding people that want to generously give to this ministry. Over the past 10 years or so, our finances have declined a little bit, a little bit, little bit each year. And yet the ministries we were doing around the world expanded and expanded. And I went home that night, not rebuked, but just challenged. And the Holy Spirit said to me, get out a yellow notepad and write down every ministry that World Challenge does. And I wrote down their podcast, and I wrote down their pastor's conferences, and I wrote down their publishing. I wrote down all these different things. And then the Holy Spirit said to me, I want you to. I'm not asking you to stop doing those things, but I want you to cross one of them off and say if I had to give one of these up, what would it be? I love doing podcasts, but I could live without doing a podcast. I crossed that off. I like writing books, but I could live without writing books. I crossed it off. We have a publishing company. I could live without having a publishing company. I crossed that one off one after another after another until I got down to about three left and I was getting a little nervous. There's two at least on here that I can't stop doing. One of them is church planting among unreached people groups and the other was James 1:27 this is pure religion and undefiled caring for the orphan and the widow. And I knew instantaneously that was my heart, that was my non negotiable. But I was worried. I didn't want to give up the church planting thing. Last year we started 400 churches and saw about 8,000 people in mostly Muslim countries. Unreached people groups. Come to Jesus. How could I give that up? And the Lord said to me, do what your father did. He started Tain Challenge. Then he gave it to somebody else and they led it and it got even better. And then he started Times Square Church and he gave it to somebody else and got even better. And then he started World Challenge. He gave it to somebody else and it's okay too. He gave things away. So we started another ministry called Compel International which now is on its own leg standing and reaching unreached people who left me with this last man standing, the one he'll all die on the thing that's a non negotiable for me. My life call has always been and will continue to be. This is the last thing on my list. I've crossed everything else but I cannot cross this off. James 1:27 I want to live pure religion. I want to see the church come alive to pure religion. I want to see people that have a heart to say I want to care for an orphanage and widow but I don't know how, I don't know where to get involved. And World Challenge exists to help people get involved in sharing the resources God has given them to help care for people like Pir and Shabana in India. A three year old girl and a little baby brother who they were born to a prostitute in the red light district of Mumbai and she was dying of aids. So she took these two little children and threw them onto the trash heap and said if I'm going to die. I can't care for them and I don't want them to live in this world. And she gave them up. And one of our missionary friends walked by and saw these two children and took them into the orphanage that were helping support and the little boy, the doctor said he has hiv. He won't. And he's malnutrition, he's starving. He probably won't live another few days. But he lived a few days and got nourished and strengthened and his sister was watching out for him and they prayed for him. And both of them at that orphanage met Jesus and their lives were transformed. That little boy lived not only a few days, not only a few months, not only a few years, but he actually went back to the doctor and he was healed of his hiv, no longer having it in his blood system. He is 17 now, about ready to graduate top of his class in high school. His older sister, who protected him all this time, is almost ready to finish medical school. She wants to be a doctor because she wants to help children who are thrown away just like she was. That's why I say pure religion undefiled is to care for the orphan and widow. Amen. I brought a little book along with me. We have some of those at the back there. I'd love for you to take it. It's a calendar that you can pray each day and you can read a scripture each day and it has a little bit about our ministry there. And if you would love to pray for us, we would be so honored and so grateful. Or you can follow us@worldchallenge.org, if you're listening online, go to our website. And we ask for people. I'm praying for not only hundreds of thousands of orphans and widows to be rescued, but hundreds of thousands of Christians to get involved and live out that pure religion that God has for them. Would you mind praying for us? And if God puts it on your heart to give, we would be so grateful. Thank you for letting me take a few minutes to share with you about World Challenge. Now I want to get into the word. I want to pray first and ask God's spirit to move mightily in this room today. Jesus, we thank you that you have power to set us free to do what we can't do in our own strength. So come right now in Jesus name, Amen. I want to talk to you this morning about being a subtle Jonah. A subtle Jonah. Three points from this message real quickly. Number one is what is a subtle Jonah? Number two, what impact does that have on on our life? And number three, how do I break free and become radically uncompromised? Number one, what is a subtle Jonah? You know the story of Jonah, right? Many of you have read this from the book before. It's one of the minor prophets, and it's an amazing story about this powerful, mighty prophet who had the call of God on his life. He was living out his destiny. He was speaking the word of God around nations, and nations were being transformed. And one day he gets this call. And the call says, arise and go to Nineveh and call out Nineveh against the great evil that it has. And there was something in Jonah's heart. I don't know whether it was a prejudice or he was just worn out, but he doesn't want to go to Nineveh. And yet this is what a prophet does. He goes and preaches to cities. And now God's calling him, if you'll go to Nineveh, you can help transform this city. Save it. And he doesn't want to go, so he goes in the opposite direction. It should have been acceptable. He should have obeyed immediately. But instead he went in the opposite direction. He gets on a ship. There's a massive storm. They find out he's the one causing it. The sailors reluctantly throw him overboard. Remember the story? He gets swallowed by a whale. He lives three days and three nights in the slime and slush and water and gurgling all this junk in his lungs. And he's there for three days and three nights. And finally he cries out to God, and God spits him up on the shore. He's stuck there. And now God says, go to Nineveh. And he's learned his lesson. Now none of us wants to be so blatantly disobedient and rebellious to the call of God, to the destiny that God has for us, to the design that he's put on our life. None of us wants to get in this much trouble. Nobody in this room wants to get swallowed by a whale. Nobody wants to live in that kind of bondage under a situation like that. None of us wants to be that kind of walking, that kind of disobedience. But many of us do it in a much more subtle way. That's why I call some of us in this room today, myself included, many times a subtle Jonah. I would never directly, rebelliously, angrily just say no to God. I'm not going in the place you want. I'm not going to be the person you want me to be. I'm not going to do that. I would never go that way. But mine is much more subtle. I think many in this room find the same way. Few of us are radical Jonahs willing to rise and rebel against God's direction and instruction. Few of us will leave our homes and run off to a new city in direct rebellion against God. Few of us will purposely choose to go in a complete opposite direction that God has called us to. But many of us are more subtle. We are more coy, we are more nuanced, we are more sly. Our rebellion is calmer. We attempt to make our lack of quick, sure absolute obedience less noticeable by obedient. By being obedient to a degree. By being partially in. In exam. Partially in obedient to what God has for us. A couple examples of this would be a husband who wouldn't begin to think about committing adultery. He knows God's law against that. But he sneaks into a little bit of pornography occasion. It's a subtle Jonah, it's not full on rebellion but it is a way of escaping one thing but allowing another thing. It could be a single mother who hears God say to her, I want you to pray for with your two young boys every single night. Get on your knees with your two young boys and pray over them every single night. And some nights she gets busy and other nights there's a movie on Netflix and she wants to watch it and the kids fall asleep and she forgets and she'll say I'll try again tomorrow. It's a subtle Jonah, it's just missing the mark a little bit. It's not horrible rebellion but it's just not quite living up to what God has called you and I to find out fully. It could be a retired couple that, that God has called to give their life and their financial resources to help missions around the world. And they're called to go and, and do short term missions in countries and. But they find themselves on their fishing boat because it's so relaxing and enjoyable and they spend more time fishing than they do in missions and fishing is not sinful. But when you're called and, and it's an acceptable form of relaxation but when God's called you to give your life to mission and all of a sudden you're getting distracted and all of a sudden now there's a brochure on your table about a three week trip on an ocean cruise liner and you're doing that three or four and before long there's no more missions work. Before long there's no even giving to missions. It's a subtle form of being distracted from what God's called you to. This happened in a parable that Jesus taught. It's found in Matthew, chapter 21. And the parable. Jesus said, there's two sons, and they were asked to obey the Father. And one son says, I will not obey you. But then he ends up obeying him. But the other son says, I will obey you. I will do what you want, Father. But then ends up not obeying him. He suddenly begins to miss the mark. He just begins to move in a different direction than what God had called him to. He. He often keeps saying yes over and over again. Oh, I'm sorry I didn't go this time. But I see my error now. Now I'm going to correct my course and go. But then he doesn't go again, and he says, okay, let me try again. But first I have to do this. And then once I get that done, and then after that, the next time, I'm on and on and on and on. It's that same system, the same structure. The reason I didn't want to do this thing is not blatant rebellion. It's just a little thing in our heart. It's just something. We talk proudly that we're not the kind of people that would run and get on a boat and go to a different city. But Jonah fled, running as fast as he could and as far as he could. But most of us are more subtle. We stay close as we can without actually obeying the exact command that God has given to us. Jonah was willing to rock the boat and get out of the way. But us subtle Jonahs sometimes try to keep things calm while still being disobedient to what God has for us. I wonder if some listening to me right now, whether here or online, might be wondering about that thing that God has spoken to you. I have my own. The Lord constantly tells me about my eating habits. And I get on these things. Like, man, even though I hate vegetables. I mean, I do. Don't get me started. Just I see green on my plate, I start having reflux, you know, just like. And then I just have to eat. Ah, but the Lord's telling me, eat healthy. If I'm going to do the next couple decades of my life with strength, I have to eat healthy. And so I'm on this. I'm on this diet. Not a diet, but I'm just. I changed the way that I eat. But, man, I passed the ice cream shop and I go, just this. Just this one Time, five nights a week. Right. Last time. Just one more time, then I do the only on weekends. It's my no vegetable weekend. No, but the Lord didn't say eat some vegetables, but then have ice cream every night. He said eat healthy. He said, go to the gym, keep your body in decent shape so that you can travel and you can move and you can do what I've called you to do. And the snooze button is the most exercised machine in my house. Right. Am I the only one? No. What has God said to you? Can you, even now, as I'm talking, can you think of something that God has put on your heart to pray with your children daily? And you just pass day by day and you make an excuse why that didn't happen? Excuses and promises to try to do it again. Far too many of us have a simple, straightforward do what God tells you to do, and we say yes. But we almost never say, no way, Lord, I wouldn't do that in a million years. We say, yes, Lord, but then we don't often do what he's called us to do. When we live as subtle Jonahs, we think it's not as dangerous as being a blatant Jonah. We're not going to be in a shipwreck. We're not going to be thrown overboard, we're not going to be given over to almost suffocate in the slime of a whale. But our subtle compromises bring subtle results that are things that you and I do not want in our life at all. You might not get thrown in a whale, but you might become dull. You might become lukewarm. You might lose your first love. You might grow close, but not close enough. You might nearly do the right things, but miss the best thing. You might run. You might not run from the presence of God, but you might subtly drift away and slip into nearness of his presence, but not get the fullness of his presence. You might miss the destiny that he has for you. God has a design for your life, a glorious plan, a magnificent endeavor, an adventure that is beyond your wildest dreams. And it is these subtle things that take us away from the very things that God wants to do in the destiny in our life. Many Christians are ruining and losing their destiny and their high calling, not because of some grand rebellion, but of a subtle compromise, just something that we are unwilling to give up. Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 15 says this. Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom. I don't know if you have that picture up there. But I brought with me this morning a picture of a little fox. There is a little you all like.